Swiggy’s Upskill Program for Delivery Workers in 2023

Swiggy’s Upskill Program: Matin Umar Ali Surve, a delivery executive for Swiggy, has a clear goal for 2023: to concentrate on his education. The 22-year-old is taking English classes and learning the fundamentals of computers as part of the company’s skill-building programme for delivery workers.

Speaking English fluently will be helpful for Surve as she pursues her engineering degree. She also noted that learning online is stress-free.

India Inc. is putting more emphasis on training and upskilling frontline employees so that they may not only learn new technology and perform efficiently, but also advance their careers. To upskill delivery executives, businesses including Flipkart, Swiggy, Licious, Shadowfax, Urban Company, and Daalchini Technologies are launching training programmes, skilling academies, and partnerships with edtech companies.

Six out of ten frontline workers responded in a Microsoft Work Trend Index research released earlier this year that they are concerned about losing their employment if they don’t adopt new technology.

The FlipAhead talent development programme is run by e-commerce startup Flipkart and focuses on the frontline employees’ career advancement. In order to train supply chain executives, the company also established the Supply Chain Operations Academy. This programme consists of a 15-day online classroom course and a 45-day apprenticeship at the supply chain facilities of the company.

According to Prajakta Kanaglekar, vice-president, Ekart HR leader – Flipkart, “The programme has been designed to impart knowledge on various facets of ecommerce supply chain and the roles within it, soft skills, safety and compliance know-how and (it) empowers our frontline workers to build careers in various supply chain management aspects and also certify them to increase their employability.”

More than 2,000 delivery executives have been taught and certified by the organisation, and it plans to train another 2,000 in the upcoming year.

In September, Swiggy launched its skills academy, a multi-skilled, multilingual learning programme with an emphasis on resources for developing and honed skills in areas like spoken English, multitasking, soft skills, laptop use, personal finance, etc.

As a platform working with more than 300,000 delivery partners, we are always thinking of new ways to give them chances and skills. The Swiggy Step Ahead accelerator programme has also been launched to provide a chance for partners who wish to transfer from their current flexible engagement to a dedicated, managerial job and become full-time employees with a fixed income and additional benefits.

At Swiggy Skills Academy, more than 81,500 delivery partners have signed up so far.

Every delivery executive at Licious must undergo a mandatory training programme that includes lessons on bag handling, road safety, and other topics. According to HR director Naveen Kumar, they are also given training in team management, handling feedback, and other operational skills that would help them advance to senior managerial positions.

To advance these programmes, the corporation is considering partnering with educational and training institutions.

Frontline employees at Daalchini Technologies are receiving advanced training in technology to manage the cloud-enabled smart vending machines as well as advance their career prospects. Daalchini Technologies offers instant nutritious home-style cuisine using IoT-enabled ‘phygital’ vending machines.

According to Prerna Kalra, CEO of Daalchini, “many of our frontline workers, who were previously in charge of fixing and restocking machines, have gone on to become hub managers, and to lead business operations in our manufacturing facilities.”

By 2030, Urban Company wants to upskill and train more than 500,000 service partners. For the purpose of accelerating the skilling of the gig workers on its platform, the company has worked with the National Skill Development Corporation.

Through its gamified learning module Gurukul, Shadowfax trains delivery drivers. According to Mohan Sitharam, CHRO, “the company has upskilled roughly 3,50,000 delivery partners through Gurukul in 2022, with the upskilling happening in different vernaculars.”